UBIs that meet the poverty line are too expensive for governments to afford.

Pros

Cons

The nature of government spending means that a UBI could be only two of: 1) Generous enough to substitute for existing welfare systems, 2) Have low phase-out rates that do not heavily penalise work, and 3) Not cost an order of magnitude more than current welfare programs. Given most UBI's are strictly universal (2) either (3) or (1) must apply.

For example, in Sweden (one of the largest welfare states) if each citizen were given a basic liveable income of 12,000€/year, the annual cost of this policy alone would be as much as the government spends in total. This seems unaffordable.

Most countries are already in debt; a situation that the additional spending required for a UBI will only worsen.

Many democracies have shown themselves to be chronically unable to raise taxes as they distribute benefits. Policymakers want to be seen as the bringer of carrots rather than the wielder of sticks.

Forms of guaranteed income that are not unconditional would offer many of the benefits of a UBI but at a fraction of the price.

Since this would have to be funded by taxes, as more recipients began to rely on it as a source of income there would be increasingly less funds to pay for it setting up an inevitable unfunded deficit.

A country that introduces a UBI would see a great influx of immigrants seeking the UBI. Without tight immigration control, the costs of the scheme would run out of control.

Microsimulation from Barcelona University study shows that only 3.4% of Spanish GDP is needed to finance a sufficient UBI. This is without removing any funding for the army, health or education.

This is effectively saying that countries do not have enough money to avoid people starving. With very few exceptions, if a country's economy can create millionaires and even billionaires, it can afford to give everybody enough to eat.

Implementing a UBI would allow governments to reduce spending in other areas; thus reducing its cost.

A UBI would enable other forms of revenue collection that could help offset its cost.

A UBI need not meet the poverty line to be an improvement over status quo. The parent discussion over-specified what a UBI must be.

Speaking for England: if the government gave everyone over 18 £6k p.a. and people paid for their own healthcare it could cut tax by half; back to pre-WWII levels.

While there may not be any country that can afford a UBI today, it does not mean a particularly wealthy country could never afford one. The parent question specifies "A wealthy country" but not how wealthy that country must be. The condition of any one country (Or any number of countries) does not in any way invalidate the idea of a UBI. Only that we are not ready just yet.

The US already pays nearly $10,000 to many taxpayers in the form of the standard deduction. Changing the standard deduction from a non-refundible tax credit into a refundible tax credit (a one-line change to the tax code) would constitute a basic income structure. It would then be revenue-neutral for the middle class, replace pell grants for college students, replace the earned income tax credit for many low-income families, and replace or overlap with social security for the elderly.

A UBI is a redistributive transfer; it is not a new cost the government must meet. Rather it’s a cost to some and a windfall to others - the net cost is zero.